You might also want to check out our collection of How To’s and Tutorials in case there’s instructions there for installing your chosen software onto your tiny computer.

Firewalls

m0n0wall

m0n0.ch/wall
monowall aims to create a complete, embedded firewall software package that, when used together with an embedded PC, provides all the important features of commercial firewall boxes – including ease of use – at a fraction of the price.

monowall is based on a bare-bones version of FreeBSD 6, along with a web server, PHP and a few other utilities.

The monowall website provides ready-to-use monowall images for the ALIX and WRAP boards, the net4801 and net5501, and other hardware.

monowall is worth considering seriously if you’re looking for a firewall or wireless access point. It is an excellent package.

www.zeroshell.net
Zeroshell is a small Linux distribution designed for servers and embedded devices, which aims to provide the main network services required for a LAN. Zeroshell has a web GUI for configuration and administration.

Its features include a RADIUS server, a Captive Portal, QoS (Quality of Service) management and traffic shaping, VPN, routing, bridging, packet filtering and inspecting, DNS, DHCP, NTP and more. It is particularly interesting because it supports VPN bonding for improved throughput and redundancy with multiple ADSL connections.

Gateway / router

Based on Linux, ClearOS (previously called ClarkConnect) offers firewalling, VPN, web proxy, e-mail, groupware, database and web serving, and file and print services, along with a comprehensive web-based interface for easy configuration.

Mikrotik RouterOS

www.mikrotik.com
MikroTik RouterOS is a router operating system and software which turns a regular PC into a dedicated router with all the necessary features – routing, firewall, bandwidth management, wireless access point, backhaul link, hotspot gateway, VPN server and more. It’s also the operating system of Mikrotik’s range of RouterBOARDs.

LEAF

leaf.sourceforge.net
LEAF is a secure, feature-rich, customisable embedded Linux network appliance for use in a variety of network topologies.

Although it can be used in other ways, it is primarily used as a Internet gateway, router, firewall, and wireless access point.

Development on Voyage ONE has been discontinued, but the latest version 0.8.5 (from May 2012) is still available via their website.

Media center

iMedia Linux

www.imedialinux.com
iMedia Linux is a hybrid between a small embedded linux distribution and a full featured linux distribution, designed for mini-ITX / x86 systems.

iMedia Linux is not as restricted as an embedded linux distribution, yet it’s much lighter in disk space and CPU/memory usage than a full featured linux distribution.

iMedia Linux embedded systems can be used in ATMs, Kiosks, vending machines, industrial computers, Point of Sale, multimedia system, Internet appliances and dozens of other applications.

And they offer a “lite” version, iMedia Alix Linux, specifically for use on the ALIX boards.

Voyage MPD

linux.voyage.hk/voyage-mpd
Voyage MPD (or “Music Player Daemon”) is a special edition of Voyage Linux that turned embedded hardware (e.g. ATOM, ALIX) into a digital music player and audio server.

We use this software to create our own on-hold music player, and it has worked flawlessly for years.

Linutop OS

linutop.com
Linutop OS is primarily designed for use as an internet kiosk, digital signage system or thin client.

It’s based on Ubuntu and can be easily customised with additional software. It’s also fully compatible with online applications and all office standard formats and can be used for office work, word processing, media player, Internet, monitoring and more.

Network storage

FreeNAS

www.freenas.org
FreeNAS is a free, open source, Network-Attached Storage (NAS) operating system based on FreeBSD.

FreeNAS uses a custom version of FreeBSD and a web-based interface to provide a fully-featured NAS environment.

FreeNAS offers software-based storage and backup solutions for a variety of applications, from home to enterprise, and supports sharing across Windows, Apple, and UNIX-like systems.

Operating systems

Voyage Linux

linux.voyage.hk
Voyage Linux is a Debian Sarge-based distro (voyage) built from scratch.

It is best run on a x86-based embedded platform such as Soekris 45xx/48xx and ALIX boards.

Voyage Linux is best suited for running a full-feature firewall, wireless access point, Asterisk/VoIP gateway, music player or network storage device.

Tools

Writing CF cards

physdiskwrite
physdiskwrite is a small Windows command line tool that allows you to write disk images onto any storage device, including hard drives, solid state drives, mSATA drives, Compact Flash cards or SD cards.

With an easy to use interface and an SSH client version available, this is a handy addition to your software collection.

Creating PDFs

PDFCreator
PDFCreator is a free, open-source tool for creating PDFs quickly and easily from any Windows program that is able to print.

Note: Although we do our best to provide useful, high-quality resources for you, we haven’t explored everything listed here in depth, so please use your common sense when deciding which resources you want to make use of.